


charisma teeth

by Anonymous



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Stars, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Fake Friends with Benefits?, Fake dating?, Flirting, Friends to Lovers, Learning to Want Things, M/M, Oblivious on Purpose, There's a Lot Going On and AO3 Tags Aren't Helpful Enough, Unreliable Narrator, background worldbuilding, horny undertones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:55:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29985960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: “How’s your finger?” Minho asks, except he doesn’t wait for an answer. Instead he grabs Chan’s wrist, lifts Chan’s hand to his mouth, and presses a kiss to the pad of Chan’s finger, right where his tiny, minor cut is.Chan makes a very undignified, sort of strangled noise.Minho smiles like he’s the cat who got the cream. “Cute, hyung.”“I—what? What?” Chan stammers, knowing that he’s blushing furiously. His ears feel like they’re going to melt off.“Should I say it again?” Minho, who is much smoother than Chan expects him to be, lets go of Chan’s wrist only to interlace their fingers together and turn so he’s facing the same direction as Chan. Minho’s hands are cold, as always, but Chan swears that Minho will be able to hear Chan’s pulse in his hand. “You’re cute, hyung. Where are we going?”Chan is going to expire. It’s been nice living on Earth, but now he’s going to explode into stardust and return to the cosmos where he was born where there are no vampires with cute smiles holding his hand and acting like Chan’s the cute one.
Relationships: Bang Chan/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 19
Kudos: 99
Collections: Anonymous





	charisma teeth

**Author's Note:**

> many many thanks to bells and emery and dean i couldn't have done this without you, although the entire two week period this was written in feels like a fever dream  
> [If you're wondering what the fuck is up with the title.](https://i.redd.it/bsdemx8mm5g61.jpg)

Minho and Chan are the only ones in the bathroom, in some sort of miracle fluke, both of them getting ready for bed. Minho has his mouth open and all his fangs extended and seems to be poking at them, checking for something. Fuck if Chan knows what, given that Minho is looking into the mirror with as dissatisfied an expression as Minho can manage with his mouth open and fangs out. Chan is supposed to be wiping off his makeup, but he’s more than a little entranced by the appearance of Minho’s other teeth, especially since Minho has all of them out, not just the primaries. Minho normally keeps himself extremely buttoned up and human-looking, almost like he’s afraid of being caught. Chan has never had to worry about that kind of thing.

“Can I touch?” Chan asks, mouth disconnected from his brain, because he rarely sees Minho with his fangs out, much less all of them, and he wants to know what it would feel like. The desire to know is burning in him. Minho never offers up information, and Chan’s always wanted to know what separates Minho’s fangs from his regular, human teeth.

Minho blinks at him in the mirror. “You want to touch…what, exactly?”

Chan flushes, too embarrassed to put it into concrete words, but still eyeing Minho’s mouth, where the points of his fangs are just barely peeking out, his mouth parted still. Minho looks at him in increasing confusion, but doesn't catch on until he runs his tongue over his front teeth, still human-looking, at which point Chan is fully transfixed, unable to look away from Minho’s mouth. When Minho realises, he blinks and cocks his head slightly, now deeply amused. The smirk works for him the way most things do, which is to say, unfortunately well.

“You want to touch my fangs?” Minho asks, a thread of incredulity in his voice.

Chan nods, unable to meet Minho’s eyes in the mirror. He knows it’s weird, but he’d seen them gleaming in the bathroom light and Minho’s fingers against the stark white and all he wanted to do was  _ touch _ . He’s supposed to have self-control, but he sometimes still gets bowled over by human emotion or by the strength of his emotions in this body, he’s never sure which. He’d always been cold when he was with his mother, his emotions somewhat distant. Now his emotions run as hot and turbulent as the core of him.

“Really?” Minho asks. The expression on his face is utterly unreadable from the mirror, but Chan’s pretty sure he saw a fair amount of shock and some fear, which he doesn’t understand.

Chan nods again, still lost for words.

Minho turns away from watching Chan in the mirror and looks at him in the flesh, and Chan’s skin prickles with the intensity of Minho’s assessing stare. “You’ll be careful, right?” 

“Are they sensitive?” 

Minho looks confused for a moment before he starts giggling, covering his mouth with one hand, blocking Chan’s view of his mouth. “Oh no, Chan-hyung, no. I just don’t want you to cut yourself on my fangs. You won’t heal as quickly.”

“Really?” Chan asks, blinking in confusion. 

Minho rarely talks about being a vampire, trying his best to preserve his identity in a dorm where nothing really stays private. It means the chances to ask Minho questions or see parts of Minho’s true form are rare, hidden opportunities. Apparently, this is one of them. 

Minho lowers his hand and bares his fangs, sending a slight shiver through Chan. It isn’t fear, or at least, not wholly fear. “They secrete venom when I bite, which does a lot to keep vampires undetected by the human population and the experience largely non-lethal and forgettable. But I’m not going to bite down on your fingers, which means that you won’t heal if you cut yourself on my fangs.”

“I’ll be careful,” Chan promises. 

Minho’s silent for a long moment, just watching Chan, the unreadable expression back on his face. 

“Have at it,” Minho says finally, and obligingly opens his mouth in a way that makes his fangs that much more visible and easier to touch. 

Chan doesn’t know how the extension of Minho’s teeth normally works, just that Minho has his upper primary and secondary fangs and then his regular bunny teeth incongruously sandwiched between them. Now that Chan’s been given permission, he doesn’t know where to start, not when he realises that Minho’s bottom teeth that aren’t his primary and secondary fangs are also sharper than they should be, an entire mouth full of danger. His pulse is racing, but he can’t seem to figure out where to touch. He just knows that he hasn’t changed his mind about wanting to touch.

Minho’s eyebrows draw together the longer Chan just stands there, paralyzed by choice, but he doesn’t close his mouth. Instead, he watches Chan for a couple of moments before reaching out for Chan’s hand and putting the tips of Chan’s index and middle fingers on the base of his upper left primary and secondary fangs. It’s easier then, Minho’s teeth cool and slippery as Chan traces the shape of them, the way his fangs taper, carefully running his fingertips across the tips of Minho’s upper primary and secondary fangs, so light that he can barely feel it, keeping his eyes firmly on Minho’s mouth, still feeling inexplicably hot. When he starts on Minho’s lower fangs, he adds a third finger to the mix, curious about his row of smaller but no less pointy fangs, lets his fingers draw more into Minho’s mouth just so he can run the points of those lower fangs from the tips of his fingers to his second finger joints a couple of times, tickled by the sensation, careful not to touch any other part of Minho’s mouth, careful to keep his touch as light as possible. 

When he braces himself and looks Minho in the eyes, Minho’s eyes are their regular brand of intense and fully fixed on Chan’s face. He doesn’t seem bored or irritated, a spark of something unidentifiable in them. Still, Chan slowly retracts his fingers and feels the edge of Minho’s fangs instead. The smaller secondary fangs are neat to him, something he’s never seen in any of the common vampire literature, and he’s read a lot since he first realised what Minho was and Minho had confirmed it to him by extending his primaries in a lethal smirk, paired with a wink. 

He’s so caught up in tracing the edge of a secondary fang that he doesn’t hear the doorknob turn, and ends up shocked when the door opens, his heart jumping into his throat. 

“Hyung, are you in…here…” Hyunjin trails off, staring at both of them. 

Minho’s fangs are suddenly retracted, which means that Chan fully just has three of his fingers in Minho’s regular, human mouth. Chan doesn’t even want to know how quickly they just retracted; he feels like it must have hurt. Surprisingly, it doesn’t make him feel any less warm, to have his fingers in Minho’s wet, wet mouth, resting on his tongue, able to feel the blunt edges of Minho’s human teeth against his first finger joints. It’s a better feeling than tracing Minho’s fangs, although the second Chan thinks that, he tries to unthink it, packing it down in a box to revisit never.

Hyunjin stares at them both, eyes round and mouth dropped open, making an expression of surprise so overdone it looks fake and dramatized. It’s not fake; that’s just how Hyunjin reacts to things, like, for a completely hypothetical example, seeing his leader with his fingers in his roommate’s mouth. Chan doesn’t know how to explain it, just prays that Hyunjin didn’t see Minho’s fangs. 

Minho lifts a hand to Chan’s wrist and gently pulls out his fingers, eyes fixed on Chan’s face the entire time, and holds Chan’s spit slick fingers right in front of his mouth, so close that Minho’s plush lower lip keeps brushing against Chan’s fingertips as he speaks. 

“Hyunjin-ah, we were in the middle of something,” Minho says mildly, shifting his head just fractionally to look at Hyunjin. 

Hyunjin keeps staring at them, looking completely lost for words. 

Chan can’t stop staring at Minho’s mouth, where the spit from his fingers has added just a hint of shine to Minho’s lower lip. He knows he should be doing something, but try as he might, he can’t think of anything to say, a perfect mirror of whatever’s going on in Hyunjin’s brain. He just wanted to know more about Minho, and now all he can think about is how Minho’s mouth felt to his fingers, and the fact that his fingers feel cold because they’re covered in Minho’s spit.

Minho smiles the smile that makes Chan’s brain think  _ danger _ , the smile that always precedes some kind of mischief. “Hyunjin, what temperature?” he asks, sickly sweet. 

Hyunjin repeats the rote answer like he’s not even thinking about it. “20 minutes at 180 degrees.”

It seems to snap him out of whatever shock he was in. “This is a public bathroom!” he hisses, index finger pointed accusingly at them. 

“The door was shut,” Minho says, sounding bored now. “You can leave now.”

“You’re both so gross,” Hyunjin wails. 

“I mean, we could be doing this in one of the bedrooms,” Minho says, and the way he says it is especially threatening, still with that pleasant veneer. It has Chan’s heart pounding fiercer than ever. 

Hyunjin shrieks something about Minho being the worst and leaves, slamming the door shut behind him. 

Minho turns his head again, so his attention is fully on Chan. 

The door opens a crack. 

“I won’t tell anyone,” Hyunjin whispers through the crack in the door, only one eye visible. “I’m happy for you, I guess. Please do these things behind locked doors.”

He shuts the door much more gently. 

“Um…” Chan trails off.

“It’s better than the alternative,” Minho says, pulling a quick, expressive face. “Things wouldn’t go well if they knew.”

Chan shifts his wrist slightly, and Minho lets go without more prompting. Chan regrets it instantly, but the bathroom feels awkward, now that he’s had his fingers actually inside of Minho’s mouth. He doesn’t look at Minho, face burning, reaching out for his cleanser so he can wash off his makeup like he was supposed to before he got distracted by Minho’s fangs and the opportunity to know more about the only other non-human member of their group. 

“Chan-hyung,” Minho says softly. “You’re bleeding.”

Chan looks up. “What?”

“I could taste it,” Minho says, and when he reaches out for the hand Chan had in his mouth, Chan sees it, a tiny cut on his pointer finger. “I think I got you when I retracted them. Sorry. I’m really sorry. Hyunjinnie startled me.”

It’s not bleeding anymore, and it really is a tiny cut, just a little bit too wide to be a paper cut. 

“I think all the blood ended up in your mouth,” Chan says, mind disconnected from his mouth. 

The second he realises what he’s said, he feels himself burn even hotter. Why is he like this?

Minho’s tongue swipes across his bottom lip; Chan tracks it automatically. “You’d better disinfect it still. It should be fine, but I’d rather be careful with you.”

“Thanks for letting me touch,” Chan says, wondering if Minho is still tasting Chan’s blood in his mouth. 

“I’d let you do worse,” Minho says, offering him a gentle smile and a conspiratorial wink. “Any time you want to do that again, just ask.”

He deliberately brushes against Chan as he leaves the bathroom, but he leaves like he’s on fire. When Chan looks in the mirror, his ears are bright red, and he looks almost as flustered as he feels. What the hell did that even mean?

* * *

Chan dreams about teeth all night, or specifically, he dreams about Minho’s mouth. He dreams of the ivory curve of Minho’s fangs, but more than that, he dreams of the moment after Hyunjin barged in, and his fingers in Minho’s mouth. He can approximate the sensation pretty vividly, given that he spent minutes yesterday just having his fingers in Minho’s mouth, and just because he was touching Minho’s fangs doesn’t mean he can’t extrapolate the feeling of his human mouth. Interspersed with those dreams are dreams of Minho winking at him, of his cool hands and the warm smile he seems to favour when he’s teasing Chan. Chan wakes up overly warm and lays in bed for a few minutes more than he usually would, going over his schedule for the day. He needs to run a load of laundry today, and somehow find an inconspicuous time to do it. Human bodies are complicated and all, but Chan thought he was beyond these kinds of reactions by this point. None of the boys will let him live it down if they find out, and he needs to shower as well. Luck is on his side, because Felix is still sleeping and Changbin isn’t in their room, letting Chan change his sheets in peace and collect a pile of laundry. Luck stays with him, no one witnesses Chan’s walk of mild shame to the bathroom to shower. He gets to get away with having a wet dream about Minho, although he just knows Minho would preen if he knew. 

After he’s done with his load of laundry, fully hiding all evidence of any embarrassing moment that everyone would crucify him for, because as much as he loves every single one of his group mates, they’re all also a little evil, he grabs everything he needs to go to the studio. He does a quick room check after grabbing a bite to eat, and finds that half of the kids are sleeping in or relaxing, and the rest of them are missing, including Minho and Hyunjin. Jisung agrees to meet him at Chan’s preferred studio with Changbin later in the day, and Chan is just putting on a facemask and heading to the door when he literally runs into Minho, who seems to be just getting in with Jeongin, who vanishes into his room with Jisung. 

“Hi,” Chan says, feeling absurdly shy.

“How’s your finger?” Minho asks, except he doesn’t wait for an answer. Instead he grabs Chan’s wrist, lifts Chan’s hand to his mouth, and presses a kiss to the pad of Chan’s finger, right where his tiny, minor cut is. 

Chan makes a very undignified, sort of strangled noise. 

Minho smiles like he’s the cat who got the cream. “Cute, hyung.”

“I—what? What?” Chan stammers, knowing that he’s blushing furiously. His ears feel like they’re going to melt off. 

“Should I say it again?” Minho, who is much smoother than Chan expects him to be, lets go of Chan’s wrist only to interlace their fingers together and turn so he’s facing the same direction as Chan. Minho’s hands are cold, as always, but Chan swears that Minho will be able to hear Chan’s pulse in his hand. “You’re cute, hyung. Where are we going?”

Chan is going to expire. It’s been nice living on Earth, but now he’s going to explode into stardust and return to the cosmos where he was born where there are no vampires with cute smiles holding his hand and acting like Chan’s the cute one. “Studio?”

“Are you asking me?” Minho asks, giggling. “Or telling me?”

Chan can’t help but smile, as discombobulated as he feels. “No, we’re going to the studio. I have work to get done.”

“Don’t you always?” Minho says, squeezing Chan’s hand and flashing him a bright grin.

“Put on a facemask if you’re coming with me,” Chan says, instead of answering. 

Minho lets go of Chan’s hand with obvious reluctance, pouting hard enough to outcompete Felix, and puts his black face mask back on, holding open the front door for Chan with no comment. Their walk to the company building is pretty quiet, the two of them walking close enough together that their shoulders brush. This is stunningly normal; the two of them don’t like to draw attention to themselves, and their walk normally goes pretty quickly. The two of them are always a little more themselves when they step into the company building, looking at each other and letting out matching sighs of relief as they take off their masks, Chan unerringly leading them to the studio he’s been using. He both is and isn’t surprised by the fact that Minho follows him, especially after yesterday.

He offers Minho a chair three times in his studio, and Minho refuses one every time, choosing to lean over the back of Chan’s chair instead. Chan has no idea what’s going through his head; it can’t possibly be any kind of comfortable, but Minho seems content enough, leaning against the back of the chair, close enough that Chan can feel him. He even lets Chan work in relative peace, offering critiques whenever Chan asks him a question, but otherwise content to just watch Chan and the screen. Chan manages to troubleshoot all of a potential song, more productive than he’d expected to be when Minho had decided to tag along. He’s looking through the other songs that need more work when Minho interrupts. 

“You should let me touch your freckles,” Minho says casually, from where he’s half-draped over Chan’s back, looking at the screen with him. 

“I’m sorry?” Chan asks.

Minho has excellent control; Chan knew what he was from the beginning because like recognises like and Minho left impressions that made it clear he wasn’t human, iron and cold and just a hint of static. Minho confirmed it for him before they started the survival show, but none of the others know because Minho doesn’t want to tell them and keeps his mouth shut. Chan doesn’t know why, but he’s not an asshole, which means he’ll do his best to keep Minho from being outed. It means that he’s overly cautious of how he interacts with Minho; he doesn’t want to tip them off, not when most of them know what Chan really is. Chan doesn’t slip often, but he does slip sometimes, and his perpetual faint glowing and stardust tendencies are a little harder to hide than retractable fangs and a blood habit. Mostly because their boys are oblivious, but Chan’s traits are all obvious. His freckles are the worst of those traits; they glow brighter than he does in any semblance of darkness. He doesn’t know why Minho wants to touch them, not when they don’t feel any different than the rest of his face.

“I let you touch my fangs, so you should let me touch your freckles,” Minho whispers, right into Chan’s ear.

Chan’s ears feel hot again. His entire face feels hot, really, and his stomach is squirming. He hasn’t been self-conscious about his freckles in years, but he doesn’t know how else to explain it. Rather, he doesn’t want to explain it the correct way, because that would be admitting to what’s been brewing between them both. He’s too old not to know what this is. He just doesn’t get why Minho is interested in him; he’s just a fallen star. 

“Unless you don’t want me to,” Minho says, only now he sounds nervous. “Should I not have asked?”

He’s so cute about how he asks that Chan’s attempt to keep his smile down almost hurts. He loses the battle entirely when he glances at the mirrors lining the room and sees that Minho’s flushed a rosy pink, on the verge of hiding his face in Chan’s shoulder. Chan didn’t even know vampires could blush like that. 

“You can, you can,” he says, beaming. 

“Stop,” Minho whines, when he realises what Chan is looking at and tries to cover his ears. “Don’t look.”

“What, you’re not allowed to be cute now?” Chan asks, daringly. It’s a lot easier to flirt when Minho’s already flustered to begin with.

“Hyung,” Minho whines, and hides his face in Chan’s shoulder. Chan can still see his ear flaring red. “Hyung, please.”

Chan raises a hand to pet Minho’s hair. The angle’s awkward, but he does a serviceable job. “Consider it my revenge.” 

“That’s not fair,” Minho says, only he’s shifted just enough that he’s saying it against Chan’s bare skin, the sensitive nape of his neck. 

Chan is an adult who isn’t going to pop a boner in his studio. He pulls his brain out of the gutter with difficulty, anyway, but then again, he’s the one who dreamed about Minho’s mouth. Of course his mind is in the gutter. “Do you still want to touch them?” 

Minho takes one of his hands, draped over Chan, and uses it to gently turn Chan’s head until Chan is looking at him, at which point he rolls his eyes. 

“Yeah, okay, just checking,” Chan says, knowing his own face is ridiculously pink.

“Can I turn the lights off?” Minho asks.

“What?”

“I can see them better in the dark,” Minho pouts. “Plus, your monitor’s on; who needs more light than that?”

“You can do whatever you want.”

He doesn’t take it back, but he feels the loss of Minho draped over him keenly as Minho goes to turn off the room lights.

Chan knows he glows like moonlight even though he’s a star, with his freckles making brighter, scattered constellations across his entire body. When Minho comes back, he’s already smiling at Chan. 

“How are you going to do this?” Chan asks, because Minho continually refused a chair, and knowing him, he’s going to do this intimately. 

Minho pauses, considering Chan, eyes flashing with humour. “Just push your chair back, okay?”

Chan does, leaving enough space for at least one body, but he’s not surprised when Minho uses that extra space to straddle Chan’s lap. He does take one moment to firmly tell himself to not get a boner, though. That would make things ridiculously awkward, and Chan already feels weird about the kind of dreams he’s had about Minho.

“Is this okay?” Minho breathes, looking down at Chan with an expression bordering on awestruck.

In answer, Chan wraps his arms around Minho’s waist, making his position just a little bit more secure, especially because he’s not sure the chair is built to handle both of them on it. “You’re fine.”

“Thanks,” Minho grins, running a hand through Chan’s hair, brushing it off of his forehead. “I didn’t realise how many of them you had.”

“I thought you could see them even with the lights on,” Chan says, tilting his head a little more to look at Minho.

“I can,” Minho says, tracing a line across Chan’s cheekbone. “I see more than humans do. But they’re still a lot clearer in the dark, and you have these fainter ones that I can’t see with lights on. It’s cute. You’re cute.”

Chan’s blushing and he has nowhere to hide, but Minho’s ears are a little pink as well, and he’s very pointedly avoiding eye contact. At least they’re both embarrassed together. “Thank you?”

Minho hums and continues mapping Chan’s face with cool, gentle hands. He’s almost reverent in how he touches the different parts of Chan’s face, playing connect-the-dots for long enough that the screens all turn off and Chan’s the only light in the room, but they both have better than usual human night vision anyway. Chan doesn’t want to break the silence, especially not with how intensely Minho is looking, like he’s trying to memorise every single part of Chan’s face. Eventually, Minho’s hands settle, cupping Chan’s face. He’s not done looking though, mapping Chan’s face with his eyes alone, leaving Chan prickling under the attention. 

“You’re so pretty,” Minho says quietly. 

“I’m sorry?” 

“You’re so, so pretty,” Minho says, and Chan doesn’t even have the excuse of not being able to see in the dark; he can see Minho’s intense gaze just fine. “I always wonder how people manage to overlook you when you shine like this.”

“I mean, I don’t shine when the lights are on.”

Minho snorts and taps a finger against Chan’s cheekbone, where he knows one of his more prominent freckles lies, still cradling his face very, very gently, like Chan’s made of glass. “You do, but I wasn’t just talking about the literal glowing.”

Chan puzzles through that for a minute, before he catches on and tries to hide from Minho’s gaze, fairly impossible with the way Minho is still holding his face and the fact that he’s holding Minho in place. “Why are you so…”

He trails off with a gesture that encompasses more or less all of Minho. 

Minho preens, like Chan thought he would, and closes the gap between them, to look Chan in the eyes, their noses almost touching. “I just think you should get what you deserve every once in a while. I’d say all the time, but you’re too responsible for that.”

It’s one of the kindest things anyone’s ever said to Chan. He blinks quickly, his eyes surprisingly damp, and tries to figure out what to say faced with a rare moment of sincerity from Minho. He’s opened his mouth to try to put words together when the door opens behind them, and Minho’s face is thrown directly into light, followed by someone turning on the lights and then screeching. 

“What are you two  _ doing _ ?” Ah. Jisung. 

Honestly, Chan hadn’t thought about how this would look to others, given that this is a lot more innocent than yesterday’s bathroom incident.

Minho helpfully lets Chan turn his head to look at the doorway, which has Jisung  _ and  _ Changbin, both of them looking bewildered. Minho doesn’t, however, take his hands off of Chan, or make any move to get off of Chan’s lap. 

“Hi!” Chan says cheerfully. 

“Is this a bad time?” Changbin asks, looking between both of them. 

“Yes,” Chan says flatly. 

“No,” Minho says simultaneously. 

Chan twists to glare at Minho. 

“Yes,” Minho corrects himself, looking shyly pleased for a split second before he puts on an indifferent expression.

Jisung is gaping at both of them. “But we were supposed to—” 

Changbin slaps a hand over Jisung’s mouth. “We’ll be going then!” 

Changbin turns the lights off for them before dragging Jisung out of the doorway and room, despite the muffled protests that he’s making, flailing a little. Changbin even shuts the door behind them. Chan will thank him later and tries very hard not to wonder why Changbin hadn't seemed too surprised. 

Minho is starting to shake in Chan’s lap before collapsing into tiny, gasping giggles laced with the faintest edge of hysteria. “Hyung, their  _ faces. _ ”

“They’re probably going to tell everyone,” Chan says, a breath away from laughter himself. Minho’s is contagious. 

Minho manages to stop with some difficulty, breathing a little heavily. “I don’t particularly care. There are worse things.”

Chan’s heart flutters. “You have to stop saying those kinds of things.”

“Do I actually?” Minho asks.

Chan knows that if he says yes, Minho will stop. He’s surprisingly conscientious about those kinds of things. 

“No,” Chan admits. 

Minho, who is still holding Chan’s face, squishes his cheeks slightly. “You’re so cute.”

The blush is inevitable at this point.

“I think you’re having too much fun with this.”

Minho pouts at Chan. “You could also be having too much fun with this.”

Chan tries not to read into it and absolutely fails. “Yeah?” he whispers, swallowing heavily. 

Minho raises an eyebrow. “Did you or did you not have your fingers in my mouth yesterday?”

“That’s different!” Chan yelps, and tries to jerk away from Minho, failing miserably between Minho still holding his face and the fact that Minho is on his lap, so he’s caged between the chair back and Minho. It’s like Minho knows Chan dreamed about him, and what kind of dreams they were.

“No, it’s not,” Minho sighs. “I’m not complaining, hyung.”

“Good to know,” Chan croaks, because Minho’s gaze is loaded with intent.

Minho looks satisfied by that, at least, before he catches sight of something and frowns.

“I have to go practice,” he says regretfully. Ah. The wall-clock. Chan hasn't decided whether it's his enemy or his friend yet.

“Okay?”

Minho frowns harder and lets go of Chan. “I was supposed to go when I first got here, so I get some time in before group practice.”

Chan rolls his own eyes and lets go of Minho as well. “Minho. It’s fine. Thanks for spending all that time with me.”

“It was fun.”

“It was. We should do it again sometime,” Chan agrees, and chokes back a laugh as Minho stumbles while getting off of Chan’s lap. 

Minho’s face is filled with betrayal. “Hyung!”

“You said I could also have fun!” Chan says, and knows he’s doing a very bad job of hiding his laughter. 

Minho manages to detangle himself without further mishap. “I’ll get my revenge, don’t worry.”

“Looking forward to it.”

* * *

They’ve started something between the two of them, and it is fun, but at the same time, Chan is trying to escape interrogation from everyone else. He was right, Jisung and Changbin did tell everyone, and after learning that it wasn’t much of a secret, Hyunjin also told everyone. Chan’s not sure whether dorm sentiment runs towards them being in a relationship or friends with benefits, but he’s not sure he wants to know what they think either. He’s been going in and out of the dorm at increasingly weirder times or making sure to stick close to the managers, but the kids seem to think he’s been given new or more work. Chan doesn’t know how Minho is avoiding all the questions, just knows that he also hasn’t told them anything. Minho always manages to find Chan on top of it all, always opens up their meetings by providing a chirpy update on the questions the kids are asking, before flirting lightly and then leaving after Chan is thoroughly flustered. Chan rarely manages to fluster him back. 

Today, Minho bursts into Chan’s Chan’s Room room like he’s being chased, a bag clutched tight to his chest. He leans back against the door, breathing heavily, looking paler than he should be. After his breathing settles, his fangs flash and he lets out a relieved sigh. “Hi, hyung.”

“Everything okay?” Chan asks, concerned. He’s taking a snack break, because he’d mysteriously found a small care package of snacks and drinks in his bag when he was looking for his headphones. He has a feeling Minho’s behind it, but it’s not like he can just ask. 

Minho pouts, and it’s almost but not quite right. There’s something brittle about him. “No. They put one of the newbies on blood duty and she decided it would be okay to hand me it in front of Innie and Felix, and they’re both too curious for their own good.”

“You get blood at the agency?” Chan asks, dumbfounded. 

Minho nods, looking distracted. “Yeah. Only one of the managers knows, and it’s easier to find a private spot here than in our dorm. It’s like how your stylists use special stage makeup for you, except it’s dietary restrictions for me.”

“How often do you need it?”

Minho shrugs, fiddling with his sleeves. “Depends. I do better with magically enhanced blood. Would you mind if I ate here?”

“Not at all,” Chan says, and lifts his snack cake. “I’m in the same boat.”

Minho looks bashful, and for the first time, wholly like himself. “You found it, then?”

“I thought it was you,” Chan admits. His chest feels warm. 

Minho grins, fangs still out. He looks especially cute today. “Gotta make sure I’m taking care of my favourite.”

Chan knows he’s flushing. “Minho.”

Minho sticks his tongue out at Chan, and he’s back to being just slightly off in some intangible way. “You don’t get to say anything; you’re my favourite.”

What Chan really wants to ask is why, but he’s not sure they’re at that level. He still isn’t sure whether Minho is serious enough or just passing the time in a new way, and Minho’s being weird even for him today. 

“Whatever,” he mumbles. 

Minho puts his bag down for a moment and frames his face with his hands, smiling with his mouth closed. It’s a weak attempt at aegyo. “Aren’t I your favourite too?”

“Not when Felix exists,” Chan teases.

Minho pouts, and Chan still isn’t sure if this is serious or not, but he figures he can be honest, at least. “You don’t have to be my favourite to have my attention.”

Minho barely turns pink this time, but he looks a little bit like he’s going through it, letting out aborted half-giggles. “Chan-hyung, you’re so sneaky.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Chan asks, pleased despite himself.

“It’s a ‘don’t you know you can’t say these things without preparing me for them?’” Minho says, and picks up his bag that contains blood in some form. “Can I have a break to eat in peace?”

“You started it,” Chan says, feeling somewhat satisfied, and unwilling to examine just why he feels that way. 

Minho shimmies his shoulders a little, but he’s back to being unreadable. “Sometimes you’re just unbelievable. Truce so that I can eat?”

“Should I look away?” Chan asks. 

Minho nods apologetically, and he’s acting off again. “I don’t…it’s uncomfortable, for me. I’ll let you do a lot of things, but this is a little much. I don’t want to be seen as what I am. It’s…unsettling.”

Chan sifts through that for a moment, trying to figure out what Minho is getting at. Ah. “You’re not a monster. It won’t freak me out, and I’ve already seen and touched your fangs.”

Minho frowns, looking surprised. His fangs are still out. “You say that, but hyung, people hate us. There’s more magical and human extremist groups against vamps than any other species, and none of us had choices about being made. We’re the results of tainted magic, so of course people think we shouldn’t exist. I wouldn’t have told you, either, but you’re my leader and I didn’t want—having me in your group would be a risk. Is a risk. I’m always surprised that you still chose me.”

“Minho,” Chan says, and he knows the aching hurt he feels on behalf of Minho is clear in his voice. “Come here.”

“Hyung?” 

“Come here,” Chan repeats. He has a feeling that he’ll lose Minho in some way if he doesn’t do something. 

Minho is stupidly careful about physical contact, and Chan wonders, now, how much courage it had taken Minho to ask to touch Chan, to allow Chan to touch him, especially his fangs, the visible marker of what Minho really is. Wonders if he’s done wrong by Minho, by not knowing any of this. He doesn’t know how old Minho is, knows that their physical bodies appear to be similar ages and knows that Minho is sure that Chan is older than him both ways. He doesn’t know how many years Minho has had it beaten into his head, that what he is is worthy of hatred. Chan didn’t know any of this at all, but then again, Minho hates being a burden. Minho doesn’t like telling people when something is wrong if that something affects only him. He wonders if he’s been doing Minho a disservice by dismissing his flirting as Minho just looking for fun.

Minho stands frozen in place, looking distressed. “I shouldn’t have said that. Forget about it; I’m being stupid.”

If Minho won’t come to him, Chan will just go to him instead. He pushes out of his chair and heads towards Minho, taking the bag with his blood out of his hands and standing just outside of his personal space. “Please let me hug you.”

“Hyung, I don’t want…you don’t have to,” Minho says, and he seems to have curled in on himself, presence shrinking. 

It feels wrong. Chan hates everything about this Minho, vulnerable in a way that Chan hasn’t seen before, not even during the survival show. 

“I’m not doing this because I have to, I’m doing this because you matter to me,” Chan snaps, because he’s spent so many years by Minho’s side and somehow never noticed that he was this fragile, and he’s angry at himself for never noticing. “Please, please can I hug you?”

Minho gives him a jerky little nothing of a nod. It’s not a resounding yes, but he’s a little terrible about asking for things, so it’s enough of an agreement from Minho. Chan wraps his arms around Minho without thinking twice about it, letting him hide his face in Chan’s shoulder. Chan doesn’t know how long they stand together, but in the space of a few heartbeats, Minho is shaking in his arms. 

“What happened?” Chan asks softly, rubbing Minho’s back. He’s scared, because Minho is never like this, but he pushes it aside to focus on being what Minho needs. He’s the only person holding Minho’s secret in a personal context, and therefore the only one who can comfort him. Maybe even the only one who would think to try. 

“There’s been an uptick in anti-vampire violence,” Minho says unsteadily, mostly into Chan’s shoulder. “Someone I know was attacked in Gangseo; he’ll be fine, but it’s too close. And the intern with the blood is anti-vampire, I think. She hinted, and I thought I could just let it go. I usually just let it go.”

Chan is a star at heart; even a fallen star is still a star, and therefore made of starfire. Rage licks through him in cold, burning flame, roaring through his ears, and now he knows why Minho was acting just the littlest bit off when he came in. “She did what?”

“I’m not sure she meant it; I may have been reading into it because I’m already nervous.” 

Chan takes a deep breath and tries very hard to let it go. He can’t. “That’s a contract issue, Minho. Privacy.”

He’s going to mention it. Of course he’s going to mention it, because Minho is crying into his shoulder, in his arms, and Minho doesn’t do these things, and Chan’s never felt his heart drop as quickly as it did in the last few minutes. Minho couldn’t even manage to flirt properly, lost his ability to act like himself, and Chan can’t let that go. It doesn’t matter whether Minho is being serious or not, not when Chan cares for him so much. Not when he’s so obviously not himself.

“I don’t want to cause trouble.”

Chan tries very hard not to lose his temper. Minho isn’t the person he’s mad at. “But you won’t be. I will.”

“Is it worth it?” Minho whispers. 

It sounds like he’s asking if he’s worth it, and Chan doesn’t even have to think about that. “Yes. Of course. Minho, you’re never like this.” 

“Sorry.”

“No, don’t apologise,” Chan says helplessly. “Please don’t. I hate seeing you like this. I—of course I’m going to do whatever I can for you. I’d do it for anyone in the group.”

“You’re very sweet.” Minho sounds obviously choked up. Chan kind of wants to kill someone for Minho, which is a new but not entirely uncomfortable feeling.

Chan runs a hand down Minho’s spine again and carefully separates them just enough that he can look Minho in the eyes. Minho’s face is a little pink, and his eyes are pretty glassy, although his tears don’t quite look like human tears, vaguely iridescent. The impression they give Chan is one of potential, or electricity, which means that Minho’s tears are definitely magical. Minho looks like he feels a little better and manages a tiny honest smile that both soothes and fans the flames of Chan’s internal rage. 

“I’ll take care of it,” Chan promises. 

“Hyung,” Minho says helplessly, and wipes away his tears with the backs of his hands. “You really don’t have to.”

“You’re crying,” Chan says, knowing he sounds murderous. “I absolutely have to.”

“Ah, a reliable man,” Minho jokes weakly. “Romantic lead from a drama. You came out of a book just for me.”

It’s weak, but at least it’s honest. Chan’s too angry to blush about it, but he knows he would have any other time. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re pretty pale, so you need to eat, and I’ll sit and guard the door, and I won’t look. After that, I’ll ask about the intern, and I’ll have Seungmin take you back to the dorm; he’s finished with vocal lessons in another thirty minutes.”

“Sorry,” Minho apologizes, arms wrapped around himself. “I’m making you clean up after me.”

Chan’s still holding onto Minho and tries very hard not to shake him. “Hush. I’m happy to do this for you. If you apologise again, I’ll be upset,” he says, keeping his tone as close to gentle as he can. 

Minho shakes his head, the expression on his face wry. “You’re very good at being perfect.”

“I’m not,” Chan protests. “I’m just doing my best, which is what any decent person would do.”

Minho manages a soft snort, and he’s no longer tearing up, even if there’s still traces of the snap of static in the space between them. “That’s what makes you perfect. You’re not, but you are.”

“Go eat,” Chan says firmly, holding onto his anger. He can panic over Minho later. “You’re delirious.”

He catches the slightest glimpse of fangs when Minho smiles, stepping back and releasing himself from Chan’s hold. “Yes, hyung,” he says dutifully. 

“Good,” Chan says, and ignores how the relief that floods through him makes him weak-kneed, sweeter and more welcome than water after a rough dance practice.

* * *

Minho marches into Chan’s bedroom. He’s dressed kind of nicely, for him, wearing jeans and an oversized black sweater. Normally he prefers joggers and sweatshirts, dressed like a dancer, opting for comfort rather than anything chic. He looks like he’s recovered entirely from what happened last week; he’d been fragile for all of the rest of last week, enough that some of the kids had noticed and come asking. Chan told them he was handling it, and they let it go pretty easily. He’s relieved that it ended up being the truth. He’d babied Minho all of last week into this week. No flirting, just a lot of simple honest comments, and making sure to be close by. It’s not that he has anything against being gentle with Minho; it’s just that it was really unsettling to see Minho like that. Minho doesn't normally need gentleness, and his public face and persona is stronger than most of theirs. He normally manages to brush off anything people think about him.

“Chan-hyung, we’re getting dinner,” Minho says determinedly.

“Who’s we?” Chan asks. He’s not doing anything productive; he’s mostly just stealthily checking Twitter, since Jisung whined at him until he took a day off from the studio.

“You and me,” Minho says, rolling his eyes. “I’m not inviting anyone else.”

There’s some kind of squeaking noise from Felix’s bunk. 

Minho doesn’t look at all abashed, just smirks a little. Chan, on the other hand, does everything he can not to look over at where he’s sure Felix is grinning at him, while simultaneously trying to ignore the thrill he gets from a Minho that’s back to being how he should be. “Should I change?”

Minho studies Chan for a long, unexpectedly loaded moment, and then smiles sweetly. “No, you’re always perfect.”

There are sparks in Chan’s stomach. Minho hasn’t flirted much either, recently, understandable after the stress of the last week, but he’s started again, and that’s it’s own relief, even if Minho’s saying the same nonsense he was that day. “But you look nice.”

“And so do you,” Minho says firmly. “If you really want to change, you can have five minutes. Do you need longer?”

Chan looks down at his own outfit. He was expecting to mostly stay in the dorm for the evening, so he’s wearing joggers and a sweatshirt. “No, that’s okay. Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise,” Minho winks. “Five minutes, okay, hyung?”

When Chan nods, he leaves, and now Chan no longer has an excuse to ignore Felix. 

Felix leans over the railing of his bed and grins at Chan with childish joy, speaking in English. “Date night?”

Chan shrugs before climbing down his ladder and heading for his closet. He’s still not 100% sure what they’re doing, still isn’t sure if Minho is serious or not. Well. He knows Minho’s feelings are serious, but isn’t sure if they’re as romantic as they seem.

“I didn’t know Minho-hyung could be like that,” Felix says, eyes sparkling. 

“‘Lix, please.” Chan knows he’s whining, and he knows that Felix is going to walk away sure that Minho and Chan are on a date. 

“It’s cute,” Felix says, sighing dreamily. “You should wear your leather jacket. Seungmin says he steals it sometimes.”

Chan knows which jacket it is. He also already knows that Minho steals it sometimes; he can always feel traces of Minho whenever Minho borrows that specific jacket, and it’s the only one of Chan’s jackets that Minho steals. He never says anything about it because he likes it; the traces Minho leaves are of cold fire and iron, and they remind Chan of himself, of where he really came from. Of his mother’s everlasting, inescapable presence and his celestial nursemaids. “You think so?”

Felix beams at Chan in response, which is pretty much enthusiastic agreement, so Chan strips off his sweatshirt, deems his black tee fine to wear under the leather jacket, and shrugs on the jacket. It feels like the vast expanse of space, which means Minho was the last one to wear it, and Minho wore it recently, probably sometime in the last week. Chan lets himself just breathe with the jacket on for a moment, taking in every trace he can, his heart calming. He’s absurdly relieved that there’s no electricity in the traces on the jacket. Any crying Minho did was likely in the presence of Chan.

“Your face,” Felix teases. “You look ridiculous.”

Chan rolls his eyes and grabs a beanie as well, to hide his unstyled hair. He has no idea how Minho looked at him and called him perfect like this, honestly. 

Felix is looking at Chan kind of seriously now. “I’m glad he’s okay, now. Last week was bad.”

“I fixed it,” Chan says, vicious, triumphant satisfaction in his voice. He wouldn’t have outed Minho to make his point, but he didn’t need to. Agencies take privacy about non-human employees very, very seriously, especially if they’re idols. Especially for someone like Minho, because Minho downplayed how bad anti-vampire sentiment is right now. Apparently it’s connected to bad pop culture portrayal, but either way, it would cause controversy the company doesn’t want. They took very swift action, fast enough that even Chan was reluctantly impressed.

Felix laughs a little. “I know. You weren’t subtle at all. He is okay now, right?”

“Yeah,” Chan says, pulling the beanie on. “He’s not untouchable.”

“I don’t need to hear those kinds of things,” Felix leers. “Gross.”

Chan stares, uncomprehending, for a moment. When he finally gets it, he throws one of Changbin’s plushies at Felix. “That’s not what I meant!” 

“Better not keep him waiting, Chan,” Felix smirks, hugging the plushie. 

Every single member of this group is evil. Chan can never call Minho evil ever again, because Minho is an angel compared to everyone else, if even Felix is teasing him. 

Chan doesn’t bother saying anything back to Felix, just stalks out of the room to Felix’s high-pitched giggles. Minho is waiting for him by the door, his shoes on already. He’s put on a bucket hat and face mask, only his eyes visible. He offers Chan a matching face mask after Chan slips on the first pair of shoes he finds. 

“Will you tell me where we’re going now?” Chan asks. 

Minho shakes his head, and Chan can tell he’s grinning. “You’ll like it more if you don’t have any expectations. I hope you don’t mind walking, I didn’t want to get a driver.”

Chan loses track of where they’re going, just follows where Minho leads. The two of them really don’t talk when they’re out on the streets, but it’s never a bad silence, and this time it’s anticipatory, because Chan can tell Minho’s excited about wherever he’s leading Chan, and it’s infectious. It’s also just really, really good to see Minho in such high spirits, something in Chan’s chest loosening. 

They stop in front of a blank wall, a small space between a coffee shop and a store that seems to sell accessories. Minho takes a quick look around them before grabbing Chan’s hand and doing something that makes Chan reflexively close his eyes, ears popping. When Chan opens his eyes, they’re no longer out on the street, instead in some kind of restaurant.

“What is this place?” Chan asks.

The room they’re in is lit up all golden, although Chan can’t see any lights, and the tables and chairs are all wooden. The chairs have flowers carved into them so skillfully that Chan almost expects them to be real, and there are baskets hanging from the ceiling, all overflowing with different plants. The people at the tables aren’t the usual sort either, Chan noticing subtle abnormalities, including a lady with enormous spiralling horns. It’s almost like they aren’t in Seoul anymore. 

“It’s for people like us,” Minho says, lowering his face mask, eyes gleaming with satisfaction. “Another Gimpo transplant, a nymph, decided to start a restaurant here. My father knows them. I’ve been meaning to come, but you’re the only one who knows about me.”

Before Chan has the chance to get disappointed about being Minho’s only choice and not specially chosen, Minho turns and winks at Chan. “Besides, I wouldn’t want to take anyone else.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Chan says, pretending he’s not absurdly pleased. 

“But you’re happy here,” Minho says, before approaching the hostess stand, pulling Chan along with their interlaced hands. “Hi, I’ve a reservation.”

The hostess looks up at Minho, and he flashes his fangs quickly. She grins, unfazed, and her eyes seem to flash golden. “Oh, you must be Lee.”

Minho grins back at her. “It’s just us two.”

When she sees Chan, her grin becomes knowing. “Your table is in one of the inside rooms.”

Minho nods, and she leads them to a table inside a room that’s somehow bursting with even more life than the outside room, one of the walls fully covered in greenery, with a small bubbling fountain in the middle of the room. Some of the tables have vines creeping up their legs, and it really feels like he’s stepped completely out of Seoul and into a fairytale. 

“Wow,” Chan breathes, almost missing his chair as he sits down, too busy trying to take everything in. 

Minho looks even more pleased. “Like it?”

“It’s amazing,” Chan says. “I didn’t know there were places like this in Seoul.”

“There aren’t many,” Minho says easily. “And you normally need to know someone to get access. I’ll bring you whenever you want.”

Chan can’t find anything to say to that, not with how confidently Minho promised that.

For all that it seems date-like in the extreme from the outside, their dinner passes normally. The two of them go over their days, the kids, what responsibilities they have in the coming weeks. Most of it is things they’ve already talked about, but it’s nice to sit and relax and just talk, Minho offering Chan bites from his food every so often, having ordered a variety of different small dishes while Chan settled for something he didn’t have to think too hard about with jajangmyeon. It’s normal; this is what they always do. Chan feels more and more relaxed as their meal goes on, because it’s become even clearer that Minho’s recovered from last week, back to his normal self, except that he occasionally gets shy while talking for no apparent reason.

Minho tells Chan to order dessert, says that it’ll be to die for, staring intently at Chan until Chan caves and orders a double chocolate castella. Minho doesn’t order his own dessert, shrugging and saying he ate too much. Chan still makes him have a bite, laughing when Minho gets whipped cream on his nose. Minho sulks, of course he does, but it’s all in good fun. It’s just nice, a return to a sort of normal that’s been missing for the past few days. 

Chan finishes a story about helping Felix bake, and sits back to take stock of the situation. Minho has his feet hooked together with Chan’s under the table, and his chin in his hands, focused on Chan. He’s been like this all through dessert. It’s almost too much. No. It is too much, because Chan has finally realised that this is serious. Minho is serious, Minho has been serious this entire time, in a romantic context. This is a date, or a declaration disguised as a date, Minho taking Chan somewhere special just because he wanted to make Chan happy. It’s terrifying. He doesn’t know how he was managing to flirt back with Minho before this moment, because he’s terrified of fucking up now. He’s never done anything like this, not seriously, doesn’t even know if he knows how to do it properly. He’s never gone after things he wanted that weren’t performing. Wanting Minho, encouraging Minho, would be committing to wanting something that isn’t quite Stray Kids, or performing, or making music. It would be going after something he wants for himself. It was so much easier to pretend he didn’t know anything before he was face-to-face with Minho’s sincerity. He can’t lie to himself about not knowing Minho’s intentions, not anymore. Can’t even try to lie about his own.

He doesn’t mean to do it, but he goes a little cold, because if he doesn’t, he’ll start panicking right at the table. Minho notices. Of course he notices, but he takes it in stride, simply lays his right hand on the table, an offer for Chan to hold it if he wants, and Chan is forced to once again face the depth of Minho’s care. 

The waitress who’s been serving them comes by with suspiciously perfect timing, and Minho hands over his card before Chan can even fumble for his wallet.

"You didn't have to pay," Chan says, his insides twisting. They may not have called it a date, and Minho has a habit of paying for food, but this still feels like a continuation of a declaration. 

Minho smiles, fangs gleaming, and that’s it’s own thing, Minho carefree enough to not hide what he is in this restaurant when he was stressed to the point of tears about it just last week. "I didn't have to, no, but I wanted to. I took you out, so it's only fair. And I wanted to thank you for last week. When I...with the blood."

“Minho. Always,” Chan says softly. He knows Minho cried; he remembers Minho shaking in his arms, and feeling so helpless it hurt. He’s still a little angry about what happened, about how he didn’t notice anything until Minho was falling apart.

“I did also want to bring you here. It wasn’t fully just as gratitude. I thought it would make you happy, and I wanted to see you happy.”

"You're really a lot," Chan says, knowing he’s blushing furiously. He doesn't mean to say it out loud, but the way Minho turns red is fully, fully worth it. They’re a matched pair.

"Hyung," Minho manages, voice small. 

He's always been cute when flustered or caught off-guard. Chan’s known his own feelings this entire time, no matter what he says to himself, but he can’t ignore Minho’s feelings anymore, and that hasn’t gotten less terrifying in the past couple of minutes. He doesn’t know if he can do this, and Minho is more delicate than he seems. Chan doesn’t want to mess up, or hurt Minho, and he’s never done this before. He has no frame of reference for wanting things with other people, not personal things. All of his wants have been professional, but Minho is a purely selfish want.

* * *

Chan hears a light knock on the studio door before it opens and Minho walks in, carefully keeping his footsteps light. He puts a bag down by the desk and pulls a chair up next to Chan, still keeping as quiet as a mouse. He doesn’t say anything, quietly waiting next to Chan until Chan pauses the playback of the track and turns to face Minho. It’s not his usual modus operandi, but Chan’s been noticeably cool since their date at that green restaurant, even though weeks have passed. It’s just that he’s so scared.

“Hey, what’s up?” Chan asks.

“Chan-hyung,” Minho says, blinking at Chan, looking very serious. “Do you need me to back off?”

He’s left Chan a comfortable bubble of personal space and then some, but he’s not so distant that it hurts. 

“What?” Chan asks, because he’s not so stupid that he doesn’t know what Minho’s implying, but he still wants an explanation.

Minho is trying to maintain a blank expression, but failing. He’s pink in the ears and anxious, his hands twisting around themselves. “Do you need me to back off? Am I coming on too strong?”

Chan wants to say no, instinctively, but Minho’s eyes are trusting and judgment-free and worried, so he sits and lets himself think about it, about why responding to Minho’s flirting has become difficult. “I…”

He knows he’s scared. He knows why he’s scared, and he doesn’t know how not to be scared, because right now he’s scared of a sure thing, or a near-sure thing, which others think is already happening. The others find it believable that it’s already happening, coming to conclusions through only observation. It’s stupid as hell to be scared, but Chan is scared anyway, because it would be so, so easy to hurt Minho, and it’s all felt deceptively easy so far. He doesn’t know how to word it in a way that Minho won’t take the wrong way, either.

He reaches out for Minho’s hand to help break it to him, and Minho one-ups him, reaching out for Chan’s other hand, interlacing their fingers and swinging their hands slightly in the space between them. Minho’s smile is almost unbearably sweet, and he’s holding both of Chan’s hands with his own like they’re in a romantic drama. Chan’s heart is racing, as it always does, nowadays, whenever he’s near Minho. “It’s okay, Chan-hyung. We’re two old men; we have time.”

“I don’t want you to stop,” Chan says plaintively, squeezing Minho’s hands, relieved of the duty of saying that he needs time. Minho understands him better than he understands himself, and that’s also a little terrifying, that he’s so transparent to Minho. “I just...need to figure myself out. Don’t give up on me.”

“There’s no hope of that,” Minho says, laughing a little. 

Chan thinks it’s supposed to be a joke, and that Minho intended for it to land as a slightly self-deprecating joke, but all he sees in Minho’s eyes is sincerity. Minho, who hates having serious conversations, came and talked to Chan anyway, seeing that he wasn’t reacting in the same way, and now he’s practically laid his intentions down at Chan’s feet. Chan’s burning up from the inside out again; he never knows what to do when Minho gets like this.

“Really?” Chan asks, anyway.

Minho raises an eyebrow at him. “Do you really doubt me that much?”

“No,” Chan says honestly. “I just don’t get it.”

“I don’t quite get what you see, either,” Minho says quietly. “I know you do, beyond your fascination with my biology, but I don’t get it either. You don’t see me as monstrous, either. You were so good about it, and I needed that.”

He doesn’t even let his primaries drop, or wink. He just looks Chan in the face, serious and lovely and still holding Chan’s hands, telling him how he feels even though Chan hasn’t quite reciprocated. Chan wants to kiss him. Chan needs to get over his own worries and hangups, because he’s scared out of his mind of what is, at this point, a sure thing with no room for doubts, but he also wants to kiss Minho. It wouldn’t be fair to Minho, not when Chan’s just asked him to stop, but the heart wants what it wants. 

He thinks he’s telegraphing, because Minho tilts his head just slightly. “Chan-hyung?”

Chan shakes his head. “No, I’m sorry; it wouldn’t be fair.”

Minho rolls his eyes. “Who are you to decide if it’s fair or not? Are you calling it quits? Or planning to cut me off?”

Chan pauses to think about it. Calling it quits? Calling it quits on Minho of all people? Chan doesn’t have a perfected death stare the way Minho does, but he packs every bit of incredulity that he feels onto his face. “What do you think?”

Minho laughs awkwardly, evidently a little taken aback. “Okay, okay, I won’t ask again.”

“You’d better not,” Chan says fiercely. “I just need a little time, because of me. Not you, not any part of you.”

“Promise?” Minho doesn’t look or sound worried, but he asked and Chan will answer. 

Chan is so overwhelmingly fond of him. “Promise,” he says, and squeezes Minho’s hands.

“Will you seal it with a kiss?” Minho asks, looking extremely pleased with himself.

Chan stares. Minho’s self-satisfaction fades, leaving him looking just the slightest bit unsure. He’s not sure what he wants to do, because any way he looks at it, Minho realised what Chan wanted and is offering it to Chan, while making it sound like Minho’s the one who wants it. 

“Minho.”

Minho sighs. “Ah, hyung, you worry too much. Didn’t we just talk about how this goes both ways?”

Chan chews on the inside of his cheek. “It still doesn’t feel fair,” he says slowly. “That I’m asking you for this even though I’m asking you to back off, for now. It’s contradictory.”

“You didn’t ask, you just looked at me very longingly,” Minho says, and grins as Chan’s face burns hotter. “I asked, because I wanted, and unless you don’t want to, you should seal it with a kiss. But only if you don’t want to, and not because you think you shouldn’t.”

“Are you sure?” Chan checks. 

“Of you? Always,” Minho says it so simply, as if it’s not one of the most romantic things Chan’s ever heard. 

Chan wants to hide his face and can’t, not with the way his fingers are tangled with Minho’s. Minho’s smiling at him, and his smile always makes Chan happy, but this is another level of euphoria entirely. 

“You’re so terrible to me,” Chan says, words dripping with fondness. 

Minho blinks at Chan, his smile fading into quiet intensity. “I’m taking the opportunities I can. Hyung, are you going to kiss me?”

“Regular one-track mind you’ve got,” Chan huffs. He’s not actually upset. If he’s being honest he’s glad Minho called him out on the fact that he’s stalling. When it comes to these kinds of things, Chan is far likelier to ignore the opportunities, no matter how much he might want them. It’s no coincidence that Minho usually starts things, that Minho’s the one who threw down the gauntlet. Even when Chan gets over himself and stops denying himself this one thing, it’ll still probably be Minho leading and Chan following him.

Chan leans in to kiss Minho, keeping it as light as possible, there and gone in an instant, cotton-candy soft and just as ephemeral. It’s still instantly branded in his memory, but that’s how things always are with Minho. 

Minho’s looking at him already, when Chan clears the haze of his thoughts. “There,” Minho says sweetly. “Now I’m promised.”

Chan’s heart leaps in his chest, and his face is doing its level best to burn up more. “Minho, you…”

He doesn’t actually have words. “Can I, again?”

Minho closes his eyes and tilts his head, placing his trust in Chan’s hands. If Chan weren’t such a coward, if there weren’t a corner of Chan’s brain still shrieking at him for being selfish, he would let go of Minho’s hands and hold him, but Chan is not that kind of lucky. Chan’s just pushing down his inevitable need to puzzle through Minho and himself, and Minhoandhimself, but he can’t resist the allure of kissing Minho one more time, keeping this one just as light, there and gone in the space of a heartbeat, his human heart feeling almost hummingbird fast. It’s still long enough that he knows how soft Minho’s lips actually are. 

Minho’s eyes flutter open. “Are you satisfied? Do you feel better?”

It’s like Chan’s mouth gets hijacked, so he doesn’t actually get to think through how he answers. “No to the first, yes to the second. Are you really okay with this?”

The barest hint of pink splashes across Minho’s cheeks, and the tips of his ears are a slightly more vivid pink. “What kind of person would I be if I weren’t? I care about you. I want—of course I want you, but more than that, I want you to be happy.”

Chan is about to start crying, never mind how Minho rushed through that last sentence, flushing violently, prettier than any flower Chan’s ever seen. He isn’t surprised by the stardust suddenly floating in the air in between them; he always releases it when he’s emotional, even cries stardust tears if he’s sufficiently worked up. However, Minho’s eyes are wide with surprise, lips parted as he stares. 

“Sorry,” Chan apologises. “I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s pretty,” Minho says, still looking entranced. He lets go of one of Chan’s hands to poke at the cloud, watching the stardust shimmer in the air. “You’re very cute.”

Chan feels very, very flustered, and that’s before Minho draws a heart in the air, manipulating the still suspended stardust, at which point Chan releases another cloud of stardust. 

“You glow even more like this,” Minho notes, conversationally.

Chan shrugs. “They reflect it back, like how the moon seems like it takes up more room when it’s covered by faint clouds.”

“It’s neat,” Minho hums. “I don’t have anything like that.”

“Just the fangs and super senses and always being cold?” Chan asks weakly. 

“You also have super senses,” Minho points out, logically. “I have some magic, too, but nothing major.”

“What?” Chan yelps, because that isn’t something Minho’s ever mentioned before. 

Minho opens his mouth to answer, but the door to the studio opens and Minho clamps his mouth shut. It’s fair, after the scare he had. 

Jisung stares at them both, closing the door behind him before putting his hands on his hips. “Are you serious?”

“What?” Minho asks flatly. 

“Chan-hyung, how are you going to clean your stardust up?” Jisung asks. “This is so much, even for you. Changbin’ll be here in a couple minutes; he’s getting drinks.”

Chan flares brightly enough that even Jisung notices, looking a little bit amused. 

Minho detangles his other hand from Chan’s, patting it gently in apology. “That’s my cue to leave, I think.”

“I mean, you could stay,” Jisung says, grinning mischievously. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you escaping questions.”

Minho rolls his eyes. “It’s not really any of your business, Sung.”

“Chan-hyung?” Jisung asks. 

Chan runs his hands over his face, displacing even more stardust. He’ll have to borrow cleaning supplies before he leaves for the day and get non-stardust covered chairs for Jisung and Changbin. “No, he’s right. It isn’t, not right now.”

Jisung looks between the two of them, and he looks a little worried now. “Should we—is this because of us? Should we not have told? Did you guys stop?”

It’s obvious that he means the kids, shifting his weight from one foot to another, shoulders hiked up by his ears.

Minho gets out of his chair and heads for the door, patting Jisung on the shoulder as he goes. “Nothing like that. We’re both private people, Sung-ah. Plus, there are details that you don’t need to know.”

“Too late, Hyunjin already told us about the bathroom,” Jisung mutters darkly, but he looks relieved. Chan’s not sure he deserves the people he’s surrounded by, who worry over him so much. “Are you going back to the dorm?”

Minho shakes his head. “Catching dinner with Yongbokie and Hyunjin. Danceracha only, you’re not invited.”

“I don’t want to be invited, and I already ate,” Jisung sniffs. “Leave.”

Minho nods at the bag he’s left by the table. “Make sure Chan-hyung takes a break to eat, okay?”

“That’s for me?” Chan asks, heart thundering in his ears, almost as loud as starspeak. 

Minho, one hand on the doorknob, turns to face Chan and rolls his eyes. “Of course it is. You forget to eat otherwise.”

He pretty much flounces out the door, but closes it behind him gently despite his irritation. 

“That was sweet,” Jisung comments. 

“He just brought dinner,” Chan says, neck prickling. Minho brings him food all the time; it’s something he did even before the rest of the kids came to the conclusion they were attached. It’s something he’s been doing way before he started flirting, even. 

“Yeah,” Jisung says, moving the chair Minho was sitting on away and getting his own chair, mostly stardust-free. He’s smiling softly at the keyboard as he sits. “Like, once we thought about it, it felt pretty obvious, you know? It makes sense. You make sense.” 

He fixes Chan with a semi-serious look. “That doesn’t mean you can escape questions forever, you know.”

“We’re private people,” Chan says, echoing Minho. 

“No shit,” Jisung says, stretching in his chair. “But you’re not being as discreet anymore. I’ll give you a break now, but you and Minho-hyung need to be more careful, or give us at least the need-to-know.”

“Or maybe you’re just nosy.”

“Or maybe I’m just nosy,” Jisung agrees, grinning. “But hyung, you were holding hands and looking soulfully into each other’s eyes when I came in, and there’s stardust everywhere. That tells a certain kind of story, you know.”

Chan doesn’t even try to fight the urge to try to push Jisung off of his chair. “Hey, hey, hey! No! Stop! You didn’t see anything.”

“Hyung, I literally saw it with my own two eyes,” Jisung laughs, doing his best to fend off Chan’s attack. “It’s going to be the first thing I tell Changbin when he finally gets here. It was like you both stepped off of the screen of a romantic drama.”

“Shut up,” Chan hisses, redoubling his efforts to push Jisung off of his chair. He’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to Chan, but Chan can’t even say that in the safety of his own mind without feeling bad about it, because it’s fully a lie.

“I bet the lunch he brought you is homemade,” Jisung singsongs, pushing back at Chan. 

It probably is, knowing Minho. Chan flares up, and that moment of weakness means he has to push at Jisung twice as hard to knock him off of his chair. Changbin opens the door to that tableau, Jisung pouting on the floor complaining about how hard Chan pushed while Chan tells him that he deserves it, face bright red, stardust scattered over both of them and the surrounding floor, some of it still in the air. The shit-eating grin on Changbin’s face, immediately turned onto Chan, means that he has a probably somewhat accurate guess about what happened, so Chan steels himself for Jisung’s dramatic, exaggerated retelling of what he walked into and Changbin’s well-intentioned teasing.

* * *

Chan somehow didn’t realise how much he’d miss Minho, even though Minho isn’t spending less time with him. Minho’s quieter, and he’s completely dialed back on the flirting, but he still comes to keep Chan company at the company building, and he still brings Chan food, or hides snacks in Chan’s bags and pockets. He still asks Chan to take midnight walks along the Han River with him. Very few things have changed about how they are. Sometimes Minho opens his mouth and then closes it again when they’re hanging out, and sometimes Chan can tell Minho’s just looking at him, but when Chan goes to look at Minho, Minho pretends like he wasn’t looking at Chan at all. It’s not particularly subtle, and it’s evident that backing off is difficult for Minho, and the worst part of it all is that Chan misses Minho even when Minho’s in the same room as him, because apparently, somewhere in their years together, Minho’s feelings for Chan have become part of his personality, or at least part of his personality when he’s with Chan. Or maybe it's just that Minho’s chosen to dim more parts of himself than Chan wanted him to. 

Chan’s not sure he deserves any of it. He can’t turn back time to make Minho feel this way about someone else, and he can’t lie and say he doesn’t care for Minho when he so obviously does, but he’s not sure he shows anywhere near the amount of care that Minho does. The other thing is that they haven’t told the kids anything, because the kids have had the wrong impression the entire time, and Chan won’t make Minho reveal his vampire status just because everyone in the dorm is taking every opportunity to tease Chan half to death about Minho. It’s just weirder to hear those jokes now that Minho and Chan have paused on making their assumptions the reality, but at the very least, Chan isn’t expecting a firing squad of questions. The kids have used all the interactions they’ve seen to conclude that Minho and Chan aren’t blowing off steam, or if they are, it’s part of a greater relationship, with feelings. Chan knows how they got that from Minho, especially given what Jisung had to say. He’s not sure what he himself has done to give them that impression, outside of going along with Minho.

When Chan surfaces from bed, he needs a shower, covered in sweat and feeling bleary. They’ve been on pause for about three weeks now, and for some reason, it’s wholly destroyed his ability to have good dreams, and at this point, he’ll even take the wet dreams back. This time, he dreamed about Minho crying again, of drowning in the iridescence of Minho’s tears. He dreamed about being helpless, about Minho being taken away from him. His skin felt numb, like static was dancing over it, and every time Chan saw Minho, Minho disappeared again. Calling it a dream is deceiving, given that before he even took a shower, he stopped by Minho’s room to check that Minho’s things were still there in the morning. Luckily, no one was actually in the room at the time to laugh at him, but Chan got his proof of Minho’s presence and was able to go shower and then go to the kitchen to eat something, even though he still feels a little off after the night he’s had. 

Seungmin’s already in the kitchen when Chan gets there.

“Did you sleep well?” Seungmin asks, before he turns and actually sees Chan’s face. “Never mind, you obviously didn’t.”

“Hey,” Chan protests, albeit weakly. He doesn’t even want to know how bad he looks if Seungmin didn’t even attempt to sugarcoat it. He’d avoided the mirror in the bathroom on purpose.

“I’ll make you breakfast,” Seungmin sighs, lightly hip checking Chan out of the way. “Go sit at the table. We’re the only ones left here besides Jeongin; we’ll be the last ones to practice.”

“Sure?” Chan asks, standing in the middle of the kitchen. “Do you need something special? Are you buttering me up by feeding me?”

Seungmin rolls his eyes and gently pushes Chan towards the table. “Just feel like I haven’t seen you in a while. So we’ll walk together, and then we have group practice, and then you can have dinner with Minho-hyung.”

“I’m not eating with Minho,” Chan frowns, taking a seat at the table before Seungmin pushes him into the seat himself. 

Seungmin rolls his eyes. “You don’t have a scheduled dinner with Minho-hyung. That doesn’t mean you’re not going to eat with him.”

That’s not at all an inaccurate take on the situation, but some part of Chan’s human insides still twist furiously at the mere mention of Minho. “Hey!”

Seungmin’s laughing at him. “You’re both really good about acting like nothing’s changed, but you still try to have your private mealtimes every so often. It’s nice. Sweet.”

Chan lays his head down on their table, which is a little sticky and gross, but also, he can’t be bothered to care. He needs a break. He needs dongsaengs less invested in his happiness, who won’t say horrifyingly nice things to him out of nowhere. With Seungmin, he’s caught them all. Even Innie decided to provide him with a blessing, finding Chan at dance practice three days ago and telling him that he hopes they’re happy, reminding Chan of the way he was when he first joined the company, young as anything. Chan thought they’d have to talk about it if they actually went for it, but the kids have made it clear that they don't, going out of their way to make sure Chan knows that he’s supported. Chan hasn't done anything to deserve this. 

Chan eats the breakfast his overly nice dongsaeng puts together for him, and the two of them get ready to leave for the company, Seungmin fetching Jeongin from wherever he was, probably his own room. This walk isn’t quiet, unlike his walks with Minho, Seungmin and Jeongin discussing their vocal lessons with enthusiasm, and suggesting things to do after practice today. It’s nice to hear them happy, but he still misses Minho, still strangled by the dream where Minho was out of his reach. They don’t ask him for much input either, letting him trail behind them, their chatter washing over him, soothing in its familiarity.

Everyone else is in the practice room already, calling out hellos when they step into the room. Something in Chan’s heart calms the second he sees Minho, who looks pretty and vaguely annoyed, pointedly looking away from Jisung. It was a dream, and Minho is here, and Chan can finally rest, until he scans the rest of the room and realises he’s in trouble, and the probable cause of Minho’s annoyance. There are no adults in the room; no managers, and their instructor isn’t here yet, and the way everyone is bunched up away from the door tells a story. They were discussing something they didn’t want anyone to overhear, and Chan knows exactly what it is.

Jisung is smirking in a way that absolutely doesn’t bode well, especially considering that there are no adults around and Minho and Chan still haven’t said anything to any of the others about what they are, still avoiding questions. Of course, everyone has concluded that they’re in a real relationship, even though nothing is happening, and nothing is even beginning to happen, since Chan hit pause when Minho gave him the opportunity. Chan has been so good about slipping out of the grasp of their group mates, and he knows Minho is even trickier than he is. After all, he’s still the only one who knows that Minho is a vampire, and not even all their staff know that.

“Can I ask a question?” Jisung asks Minho, grinning even more suspiciously. 

Minho closes his eyes and mutters something under his breath. Probably a prayer. It’s what Chan would be doing.

“You already did,” Minho says out loud, staring at Jisung like he’s daring him to continue. Seungmin and Jeongin both snicker. Felix is smiling peacefully, but that doesn’t mean anything; he causes trouble too. Chan still remembers Felix’s comments the day he’d gone on his date with Minho, and he’ll have his revenge. Somehow. Hyunjin and Changbin are pretending they’re not paying attention, but he can tell they’re just as eager to hear this play out.

“No, wait, this is important,” Jisung says, which means it absolutely isn’t. “Do you see stars when you kiss?”

Chan closes his eyes in defeat, knowing he’s already lost control of the room. He can hear more of them laughing, can hear someone, likely Changbin, smacking Jisung while groaning about the pun, and knows, for a fact, that more is happening that he can’t hear. He keeps his eyes shut and buries his face in his hands for good measure. He doesn’t even want to know what Minho is going to say. He’s not even the one being asked the question, but he’s definitely the one who feels the most embarrassed already.

Minho sounds offended; Chan can clearly picture the outrage on his face. “Why would I need to kiss Chan-hyung to see stars? He’s already right there.”

That leads to an increasing cacophony of noise, and several extremely suspicious thumps, as well as the sound of skin hitting skin in a slap. Chan opens his eyes, and Minho’s ears are bright red but his face is set into a scowl directed at Jisung, who looks almost as bewildered as Chan feels, despite Felix shaking him with glee. 

“Yeah, Sung-hyung, isn’t Chan-hyung enough for you as he is?” Jeongin teases.

Chan will buy Jeongin anything he wants; bless their maknae, because the only thing he’s prompted is Jisung loudly protesting that Chan is fine as he is and of course he didn’t mean for it to sound like he didn’t appreciate Chan.

When Chan meets Minho’s gaze, Minho raises an eyebrow at him. His attempt at disaffected would be more effective if his ears weren’t still red. Chan blows him a kiss, surprised at his own daring. Minho turns even redder and covers his mouth with a hand, but Changbin is already shrieking, loudly, about how dare they do that kind of thing in front of innocent eyes. Jeongin is yelling back at him that it wasn’t anything at all, and he’s a killjoy, and doesn’t he believe in true love, and everything is descending into an entirely new form of chaos. Felix is egging Innie on, shouting at Changbin in delighted counterpoint, while Hyunjin appears to have taken Changbin’s side. Seungmin is staying out of it, but smiles at Chan when Chan looks at him, because he’s apparently the good one this time around. Jisung wants to know what he missed, but none of them are cluing him in, too caught up in their own argument, so he’s just adding to the general din. Chan feels for the headache their instructor is going to have the second he steps in the room. 

Minho, when Chan manages to look at him, is probably smiling, mouth covered still. Chan wants to have him; he wants this to be all the way real. He has, this entire time, but now it feels imperative, like something he can’t put off, not when he’s already almost all the way there. 

Minho raises an eyebrow at Chan, as if he’s magically sensed Chan’s preoccupation.

Chan shakes his head and offers Minho a subtle finger heart, held against his chest, unnoticed by everyone else in the racket that they’re making. Minho’s eyes crinkle further, but he doesn’t reciprocate, sticking to the rules of engagement that Chan set. Chan kind of hates those rules right now, but he can’t do anything, because their instructor chooses that moment to step into the room, watching the general chaos unfold before fixing Chan with a look, the kids coming to a ragged stop as they realise that an actual adult is there. 

Chan has things to do, once practice ends. He doesn’t normally focus on the end of practice, wanting to be present, but now, as it starts, it’s the only thing on his mind. He wants it to be over so he can rush out, a million different ideas taking shape in the span of seconds, because their rules of engagement have to change. Chan doesn’t know how he’s gone through the last three weeks pretending he’s okay with this; he hates it. He wanted Minho to be able to send him a finger heart back. He wants Minho back the way he’s supposed to be, not dampening parts of himself, and if that means he’ll go through practice on auto-pilot, then that’s what he’ll do.

* * *

Chan used a small handful of favours in order to do this, but that moment with the rest of their group, all these little moments where Minho has still been there, and he’s still scared of fucking it up, but he doesn’t think he can bear to keep them on pause much longer. It feels stupid, when he knows that he wants and that Minho wants and that the shapes of their wants fit together like lock and key. This feels as inevitable as his fall out of the sky, away from his mother. Everyone has to grow up eventually and face the truths they weren’t sure they wanted to know. Chan’s no different. Chan still needs the night sky and the stars to be able to have this conversation, but he’s trying to let himself have something he wants, texts Minho to ask if he’s free, if he’ll come up to the roof, please. 

Minho sees his message but doesn’t reply to it. Chan isn’t surprised to find the door to the roof swinging open only a few moments later. 

“Hi,” Chan blurts out when he sees Minho, who looks just a little unearthly and still as pretty as ever, even though Chan knows he’s been working in one of the practice rooms for a while. 

“Hi, hyung,” Minho says quietly, walking towards Chan. “What’s up?”

“I missed you,” Chan calls across the space between them.

Minho’s smile is little and almost teasing. “I’ve been right here the entire time.”

“It hasn’t been the same,” Chan says, once Minho’s standing in front of him. “You went beyond what I wanted you to do.” 

Minho shrugs. “I didn't want to make things hard for you. You looked really upset, when we were talking about it. At the restaurant as well, towards the end of the night. You were really upset.”

Chan knows that it’s true, but still. “You cut away parts of yourself.”

“I had to. I wasn’t sure about what you needed me to stop, so everything I could bear to, I stopped.”

But that doesn’t make any sense, not with the food and the walks and all of it. “But you were still around.”

Minho’s smiling at him. “Some things I couldn’t bear to stop.”

Chan covers his face and sinks to a crouch, making a high-pitched noise that he knows Minho can hear. Every time he thinks he has a handle on it, Minho proves him wrong. It’s so much easier to be sincere than to allow someone to be sincere to you. Minho obfuscates in different ways from Chan, but he still has his own issues about sincerity, and yet, here he is, being honest with Chan. And they’re doing this at night, which means Chan’s all-over, innate glow is giving him away. 

He feels Minho crouch beside him, wrapping an arm around Chan’s shoulders but making no move to move Chan’s hands away from his face. Chan appreciates him so much. “Are you okay? Does that count as breaking the promise?”

“No,” Chan whines. “It’s fine; you’re just terrible for my heart.”

Minho laughs and Chan smiles with him. He always has. 

“What did you call me here for? To see the stars together?”

Well. “Yes. And no,” Chan says, and this isn’t how he wants to do it, he had plans, he wasn’t going to be a nervous wreck about it, but here he is, a fool, undone by one sentence from Minho.

“The stars are beautiful,” Minho says, something questioning in his voice. 

“You’re so distracting,” Chan says into his hands, still covering his face. “I had plans and then I saw you and now I don’t have plans anymore.”

Minho’s arm has slipped off of Chan’s shoulders and now he’s rubbing at Chan’s back. “I’m sorry?”

“No, don’t apologise, why are you apologising? I’m just…you just make me nervous,” Chan forces out and uncovers his face, even though he feels stupidly defenceless without it. 

It’s not like Minho’s trying to hurt him, or anything. Just that Minho wants to date him. Just that Chan also wants to date Minho. 

“I want to take it back,” he says, turning to look at Minho. “I want you back the way you actually are, and I want you to flirt, and I thought I’d be able to do it nicely but then I saw you and it turns out I can’t keep myself together.”

Minho just looks at him for a drawn-out moment, letting Chan’s word vomit sit in the air around them. Hours could pass and he doesn’t think they’ll notice. “Are you sure?”

Chan nods. 

Minho exhales, and then smiles in a way that makes Chan heart thrill. “Good. I wanted to say this earlier: the stars are pretty, here, but you’re still the most radiant one of them all.” 

He blushes immediately afterwards and has nowhere to hide with how close their faces are. Chan laughs, and it feels like a relief. They’ve almost made it. 

“I want a relationship,” Chan admits, once he’s stopped laughing, into the quiet nighttime air, Minho’s head tilted towards his, eyes bright. “I don’t know how to want it. But I want it.”

“It’s a learning curve for both of us,” Minho says, swaying closer to Chan. “I haven’t wanted things either. But if you’re settling for a relationship, and not just us continuing as we have, I want rules.”

“Rules?” Chan echoes. 

Minho takes his hand off of Chan and gets up, dusting himself off unnecessarily before offering Chan a hand, helping Chan stand up. “I would’ve been fine if you didn’t want to, but still cared, but if you want to actually do this, I want rules.”

Now that he explains it, it makes perfect sense. “We tell no one who doesn’t already know.”

Minho nods, and doesn’t let go of Chan’s hand, instead using it to lead Chan on a walk along the edge of the roof. “Good rule. Just the kids, then. I don’t want to change room assignments. Too risky.” 

“That’s fair,” Chan says. “I want the kids as out of it as possible. No debriefs without both of us signing off on it, but anything they happen to catch is fine.”

Minho nods. “Anything else?”

Chan thinks about it, but most of his worries are about getting caught. Well, and one other thing. “We have to talk about things. You hide too often.”

“You’re not any better,” Minho counters. “Deal as long as it’s both of us.”

Chan stops in his tracks and turns to Minho. “I don’t mean just about relationship things. I mean your other things as well.”

“I know,” Minho says calmly. “I’ve accepted it. You might have to prompt me.”

“Are there things I should know?” Chan asks. “About your…” 

He trails off. He won’t say vampire out loud. The chances of someone listening in are minimal; he still won’t take the risk. Not with Minho. Never with Minho.

“I can never bite you,” Minho says, playing at serious, but his eyes are sparkling wickedly. “You wouldn’t remember it, and I like my filtered blood.”

Chan knows he flushes; he can see the way the air around him lightens, glowing brighter like a full moon. “It wasn’t about your fangs!”

Minho bares his now-extended fangs at Chan, but he looks relieved anyway. “Are you sure?”

“It wasn’t entirely about your fangs,” Chan corrects, because, well, he’s self-aware. “You never talk about those kinds of things, and I already know all the literature is off, and I don’t know, it’s nice to be the keeper of your secrets, and they’re the biggest marker of your biggest secret.”

“Oh,” Minho says, voice tiny, fangs once again retracted. “Do you really want to know?”

Chan nods, scratching at the back of his neck with his free hand. “If I didn’t erase my laptop history, you’d see just how much crappy vampire literature I’ve read through.”

Minho laughs, startlingly bright. “Chan-hyung, why would you torture yourself like that?”

“Because I want to know everything about you,” Chan says, entirely too honest.

Minho is blushing furiously. So is Chan. They’re both terrible at this; if any of the kids were overhearing them, it would fully be a nightmare. Chan knows they’re both an embarrassment, nowhere close to the smooth romance they’ve been managing to portray, somehow. 

“Just ask me,” Minho says, shuffling a little. “I tell you things when you ask, but you rarely ask, hyung.”

Chan knows. It’s one of his biggest flaws, that he doesn’t ask. That he doubts. That he knew, deep down inside, at the core of him, that Minho was serious the entire time, that Minho was risking a lot, putting his heart on the line, and still had the nerve to lie to himself and say that Minho was playing around. It’s probably a minor miracle that he didn’t throw Minho’s vulnerability into his face. 

“You make it look really easy,” Chan says hoarsely. “I don’t…I don't know how to have the things I want when they’re things like you.”

Minho sighs and presses their shoulders together. He’s quiet for a long moment, looking at the view spread out at their sides and the stars above, visible only because neither of them have human eyes. 

“I think it’s really funny, that you think I know how to have the things I want,” Minho says finally. “I don’t like causing fusses in ways that matter; you just made a rule about it, and I know that what I am is…difficult.”

He sees Chan’s glare and laughs a little unhappily. “Just because you don’t see it that way doesn’t mean that everyone does, hyung. Every one of us is created by tainted magic, even if we wield something purer. What I am is difficult, hyung, that doesn’t change just because you know and think I’m different.”

“But you are,” Chan says honestly. 

“And it doesn’t matter to anyone outside of you and me,” Minho says, eyes like black holes, completely dark and unreadable.

“Minho,” Chan says, because it’s hurting him, to hear Minho talk about it. Minho may have gotten used to the hurt of it; Chan hasn’t, and Chan cares so much. Chan’s insides are flaring up, fire at the heart of him far from banked.

“I’ve gotten used to it,” Minho says. “If I’m not mad, you can’t be mad.”

But that’s not fair, because Chan is in— 

Because Chan is— 

Because Minho, to Chan, is— 

This is not a thought he can voice yet, not even in the privacy of his own mind. He gently puts it in a mental box to revisit at a much later date. 

“I’m not happy about it,” Chan says instead, and his voice is shaking. 

“I wasn’t expecting you to be,” Minho says, frowning a little. “We can revisit it in the future, maybe.”

“Are you making this a rule?” Chan asks. 

Minho nods. “I have to. You get angry about us like it’s your job.”

Chan pulls a face. “Well…”

Minho giggles. “No. It’s not; you know it’s not. I know it’s your fire, and you normally have it under control, but you can’t, okay?”

Chan mulls it over before nodding. “I don’t have any rules like that. Being a star is simple.”

“These are our rules?” Minho checks. 

Chan nods. “These are our rules.”

“Do we seal it with a kiss?” Minho asks, eyes glinting, reflecting Chan’s light back at him. 

“Well it’s not like we’re going to seal it with blood,” Chan says, reasonably, before frowning at Minho, mostly jokingly. “I’ll get a complex if you only kiss me to seal promises.”

Minho laughs, untangling their hands, and holds Chan’s face like Chan was expecting him to. “I like kissing to seal promises. I’m not only going to kiss you to seal promises. You just don’t have a large enough catalogue of kisses.”

Chan knows that they’ve switched from business to pleasure, just like that. They have plenty of experience turning themselves on and off, switching through personas like channels on a TV. It’s something that’s going to be part of their relationship, no matter how hard they try to minimize it. Still, Minho is serious about sealing it with a kiss, and there are worse ways to start partnerships. Chan leans in to kiss Minho, brief and chaste, and this time he feels the static, his lips going temporarily numb. 

When he pulls away, he bites down on his lip. “Bigger seal?”

“Yeah,” Minho says, sounding breathless. “We had a lot of rules, and this is double-sided unlike the last times we kissed.”

“Can I kiss you for real now?”

Minho’s eyes are darker than space, but just as comforting. Instead of answering Chan with words, he leans in, fitting his mouth to Chan’s carefully. Any tingling Chan feels isn’t the result of binding magic this time, just the result of the slide of their lips together, and it’s surprisingly more difficult to let go than he thought it would be. Every time they end one kiss, Chan wants another, and another, and another, greedier than he thought he knew how to be, and Minho lets him, Minho is the same, the two of them dancing the line between kissing and making out, still achingly gentle. When Minho pulls away for good, Chan realises that his hands are tight around Minho’s waist, but he doesn’t know when it happened, caught in the delirium of kissing Minho, whose eyes are still the darkest void Chan has ever known. 

“You lied to me,” Minho says softly, a smile hovering around his mouth. 

Chan cocks his head, and doesn’t let go of Minho. “What?”

“You do know how to be selfish,” Minho murmurs, and laughing, lets himself be kissed by Chan again.

**Author's Note:**

> -fun fact neither chan nor minho use the word love in reference to each other at any point in this fic because they’re both terrible about letting themselves have things they want and also saying things. like it’s obvious with chan at the end but applies to both of them throughout  
> -literally none of the kids ever catch on to how unsmooth their romance can be, they’re just like “ah, yes, our hyungs are gross and romantic,” meanwhile, chan’s sheets are covered in stardust bc minho used the word love but in front of the kids it’s all like, winking and lines and holding hands and being almost offensively cute  
> -the premise of vampires in this universe is that they’re the result of blood magic, which is considered tainted magic, although vampires themselves naturally use untainted magic. minho is normally just fine with being part of a hated class of creature, but you know, someone was talking about outing him at his workplace the day after an acquaintance of his got attacked. it’s enough to get to anyone.  
> -chan’s the oldest fallen star from his region that’s on earth, and as someone who has only ever lived in the vacuum of space he would, of course, be delighted by music, because starspeak is deafening for human ears  
> -[updating to say I do now have a twitter](https://twitter.com/like_fae)


End file.
